


A Crack in the Mask

by Papapaldi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dark Doctor (Doctor Who), F/F, Grief/Mourning, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-08-26 09:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 18,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16678930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: "Yasmin wasn’t sure who the Doctor was anymore. Everything she thought she knew about the woman – the happy-go-lucky, hyperactive joker, that could melt the resolve of the universe with her compassion – only now was that image pulled away to reveal the struggling, broken, husk of a being underneath. A crack in the mask."Ryan, Graham and Yaz get a glimpse of the Doctor's true nature when she comes to rescue them from the clutches of malicious aliens.





	1. Chapter 1

Ryan, Graham, and Yaz were in what one might call a precarious situation. Other’s might call it a matter of certain death – but those came about quite frequently when one travelled with the Doctor. However, this time, the Doctor was nowhere to be found – and they were running out of options. 

They’d been wandering an alien planet (as they so often did these days) and were caught up in the middle of a raid – a sort of intergalactic harvest of living crops by space-faring farmers (with a few extra sets of fangs and claws than the average farmer had back home). Apparently, the Sagira were the kings of the galactic livestock industry, and three humans were a delicacy they couldn’t pass up. They’d been abducted – teleported straight off the planet’s surface before the Doctor could even wonder what was happening. They’d woken up in a grimy holding cell, the expansive, industrial din shuddering and clanging around them. It was a slaughter ship – the echoes of screams long died out still lingering in the air. Needless to say, they were terrified. 

A putrid stench of rotted flesh hung in the air, stifling and hot, like the silence that came with it – a silence of dwindling patience and mounting fears. They felt helpless – but there was nothing they could do except wait for the Doctor. The back of the cell was walled in with a sheet of thick glass that looked out on some sort of central atrium. The glass was protected by some sort of force-field that delivered an electric shock when touched – something that Ryan had learnt the hard way when he tried to punch it. The hall beyond the glass is large and lit with bright white fluorescents, it seemed to be a welcome centre, the public face of the company. Friendly looking blue lettering flashed upon the back wall that said “Sagira’s Delightful Delicatessen” above a logo depicting what looked like a Christmas ham. A dignified member of the Sagira clan stands on a raised platform just below the logo, looking out over the hall. Armed guards stood at regular intervals along the glass walls, all of which – Yaz reminded herself – likely housed prisoners such as herself. The aliens themselves were bipedal, and just human-looking enough to instil an uncanny feeling of dread in her every time she looked at their spider-like pincers and greyish moulded skin. 

“Why have they got their holding cells looking out onto the welcome centre, ain’t that going to deter potential customers?” Graham mused, making idle chat while looking out at the entrance hall. The clean, clinical hall drew a stark and ironic contrast to the dingy cell they occupied, complete with smears of curdled blood and piles of gore-stained bone. 

“Really Graham, that’s what you’re worried about – their marketing scheme?” Ryan exclaimed, still nursing his singed hand. 

“They can’t see in here, look” – Yaz pointed at the glass – “it’s a one-way mirror, probably sound proof too.” She kept running one question through her mind; what would the Doctor do? She would try to keep everyone’s spirits up, maybe instil a sense of totally irrational hope before coming up with a plan to save them all. Only problem was – Yaz wasn’t a time travelling alien genius. 

“How can you tell?” Ryan asks, standing up to survey the mirror – what to them looked like a window – more closely. 

“Secret police skills,” she answered smugly, “I see them all the time.” 

“So what, it’s just there to intimidate the prisoners?” – Graham gulps – “somehow that’s a whole lot worse.” 

“Oi!” Yaz exclaims, pulling Ryan back from the glass. He was edging forwards, putting his face mere inches away from the electrified surface. 

“Calm down, I wasn’t going to touch it, I’m just getting a closer look.” He sat back down, dejected, beside Graham. “The Doctor is going to come though right?” Ryan asks, trying to soften the edge of doubt and fear creeping into his voice.

“‘Course she will, she always does don’t she?” Graham says, emanating faith and energy and clapping his grandson on the shoulder. 

“Yeah, she’ll be here.” Yaz added hopefully. 

A sharp clanging on the cell door cut through their conversation, and their hope with it. 

“Clear!” Grumbled the croaking voice of one of the alien workers, muffled through the thick metal door. A garbled string of radio static replied to the voice, “permission received for departure.” The three captives listened as the guard’s footsteps dredged along the hall outside, fading away. 

“What was that about?” Ryan asked, when they were sure that the guard, however sharp his alien hearing, was out of the way. 

“I don’t know,” Yaz replied, stepping over to the door and trying to see out of the slight crack between the wall and its hinges. “It sounded like they just skipped over us, like they’re ready to leave.”

“Or maybe, they’re going to do something worse to us when we get wherever they’re departing to.”

“Or, Ryan, maybe you can try a little positivity.” Graham scolded, folding his arms. 

“Whichever it is, it’s buying the Doctor more time to get us out,” Yaz grinned, “she’s going to make it.”

She wasn’t going to make it. No, positive thinking, it was very unlikely that she was going to make it – but she was the Doctor, and overcoming impossible odds was sort of her forte. Just an hour ago she had turned around during one of her longwinded expositive speeches about the history of the planet Kragnir (that the four of them had landed on expecting a peaceful excursion through the lush purple forests of Doul) only to find that her friends were silent for once, not in awe, but because they had been spirited away by a Sagirian slaughter ship. The Sagira were famous throughout the system for carnivorous exports of the highest pedigree. The fact that they were kidnapping humans for these exports was quite the red flag when it came to their credibility – and the Doctor was prepared for the worst. 

When she was unable to fix a connection with the ship’s extraction beam, she had run back to the TARDIS and begun frantically tracing the ship’s signal before it flew out of range. Unfortunately, the offending body was decked out with all the latest shielding and encryption technologies, making following it a near impossible feat. Key word; near. Your everyday, run-of-the-mill livestock hanger had no need of signal scrambling transmitters or temporal tracking shields – so what were they hiding? Nothing good, she suspected. She also suspected that she would be dismantling a corrupt, torturous establishment all before she got some proper lunch – the real question was, would she make it in time to save her friends?

A fizzing sound filled the room, as if someone was opening a giant bottle of soft drink. The great metallic panels at the opposite side of the entrance hall split open from the centre in a slow, ordered motion as geometric patterns untangled themselves and parted to reveal a simmering golden glow and the sound of whistling, pressurised air. Something else joined the wind in the cacophony of sound – a noise that grated on the ears yet filled the soul with wanderlust, and an irrational, undeniable hope. The sound of the TARDIS. 

Ryan, Graham, and Yaz perked up, racing as close to the electrified glass as they dared to get a closer look. 

“Told you,” Yaz muttered, beaming.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor strode into the entrance hall, much to the disbelief of the overseer and its guards. Her form was silhouetted by the warm glow of her ship – stray strands of her wild blonde hair stark standing electric against amber light. Her coat billowed about her ankles and framed her angular, determined posture. 

“Hey!” Ryan yelled, balling up his fists at his sides to stop himself from banging against the glass. “Hey, Doctor, we’re in here!”

“It’s no use Ryan, she can’t hear a thing.” Graham says, exasperated. He begins to pace around the cell in a tight-knit circle, ducking to avoid the low hanging ceiling. “What’s she thinking, barging in here – I bet she don’t even have a plan.” 

“Does she ever,” Yaz adds, “she’ll think of something, she always does. I just wish there was some way we could help.” 

“Who’s this? How did she get in?” The alien overseer shouted – or rather, clicked – from the other side of the glass. Even the TARDIS translation matrix seemed to be having trouble translating their garbled tones, as each syllable was accompanied by a insectile click of their pincers. 

“Hello there“ the Doctor chirped, striding confidently onwards “You are the commander right? I need to talk to whoever’s in charge.” She came to a halt in the centre of the hall, facing the overhanging balcony on which the overseer stood, dumbfounded. 

They stuttered, caught off guard by the intruder’s reckless confidence. “y-yes, I am, though I don’t see why that’s any of your concern.” They turn to the guards flanking he walls gesturing to them in anger and impatience. “What are you waiting for?” it shrieks, “detain her!” The soldiers spring to life, stalking towards the centre of the room. Only a deli with human exports needed such amenities as armed guards. 

“Hey, whoa, whoa!” The Doctor exclaimed, pushing her hands out in a cautious gesture. “Wait just a moment, that’s hardly polite.” The guards falter, looking to the overseer for guidance – who stared back at its disciples in fury at their obedience to this intruding creature, who someone oozed enough ill-placed confidence to turn the heads of the loyalest of soldiers. “I just have one teensy little request before you do anything rash.” She says, her voice speeding up in the way it always seems too when she finds herself in a tight spot. She throws her arms out wide dramatically, her wide stance letting her cloak fly out behind her. Her eyes narrow, her expression hardens. “Scan me.” 

“I’m sorry –“ the overseer clicks, clearing struggling to make sense of the situation. 

“I said scan me, go on,” she grins, “that’s all I ask. Just one simple scan and run the results through your databases, see what it turns up.”

“What good will that do? You are of no significance.” It scoffed, though it reached into the pocket of its grey suit regardless – a grey so similar to that of its skin, and so stifling, that it resembled a part of its body. It pulled out a sheen, compact device that sent a faint grid of light flitting over the Doctor’s form, scanning her biology for a match in the universal archives. The creature rolled its bulbous eyes and clicked its pincers absent-mindedly as the device calculated the data input. There was a resounding ding accompanied by a flashing light on the device to indicate that the scanning was complete. The creature cleared its throat – a warbled, disgusting sound of gushing fluids and the scraping of coarse scales – and surveyed the screen. What must have been a gasp escaped from its mouth, and its already bulging eyes pulsed bloodshot and swollen as if they would explode at the slightest touch. The guards still stood waiting for orders, stuck wondering whether they should retreat to their posts or converge on the intruder. 

“You found something then?” the Doctor teases, filling the creature’s silent disbelief. 

“You –“ it began, staring at the scanner held in shaking claws, “why are you here, we have no quarrel with your people, we have nothing to hide.” There was fear in its voice, recognisable even through the layers of alien sounds and mannerisms. 

“Pfft, that’s likely” the Doctor laughs sarcastically, “I think you do have something to hide, or is kidnapping and processing humans company policy. I’m actually quite familiar with the intergalactic laws in this system, and unless it’s all changed very recently, I think you and your despicable company is about to find themselves in a lot of trouble.”

“What do you care for intergalactic law? Surely” – it widened its slit of a mouth into a forced, whimpering smile – “we can work something out.”

“Oh, I don’t, not really,” the Doctor replies. “Only you’ve gone and made it personal – and get these guns out of my face!” she cries, eyeing the onslaught of arms currently pointed towards her. 

“Back away,” the overseer barks, “I said back away now!” The soldiers obey. 

“And,” the Doctor begins, watching with satisfaction as the soldiers retreat, looking confused, “just a reminder to your lackeys here – what’s my name.” She smirked and stared the creature dead in its still bulging eyes. 

“Y-you are the Doctor.” It clicks, still clutching the scanning device tightly. “The oncoming storm, bringer of darkness and doctor of war. You are the last of the great time lords of Gallifrey –“

“Yeah, yeah,” she interrupts, waving him away. “Thanks for the ego trip, yeah that’s me. now, do I have your attention.” She addresses the soldiers, and each of them let their grips on their weapons go slack, looking down at their feet. They’re scared, Yaz muses, actually, properly scared. 

“Please!” The overseer blurted out, spluttering and quivering, “please just let us go in peace, we beg you!”

“Oh, I will,” the Doctor beamed, with mock sincerity, “I’m nothing if not fair. But first, where are my friends?” Surely now they’d hand them right over, they were only just short of cowering in fear. Yaz tried not to imagine why the Doctor had such a reputation, surely it was all a bit of exaggeration and misunderstanding. 

The creature was visibly perplexed, “friends?” It asked. 

The Doctor performed a comically large eye-roll, clearly growing impatient. “The humans you captured earlier from the Doul forests of Kragnir! Three of them, hail from the planet Earth. Return them to me now.”

“Oh, those three,” the creature made a strange gargling sound that only vaguely resembled the nervous giggle it was trying to emanate. “Why concern yourself with them? W-we can supply you with our greatest warriors when we return to our home planet, far greater than those three humans, you need not miss them.” Its bug-eyes flicked from side to side, as if checking for an exit or an advantage over the intruder. 

The Doctor scoffed. She took a step forward, sending the rows of guards shuffling hastily backwards – as if one glance from the Doctor would destroy them. “You want to replace them?” 

The overseer wrung its clawed hands and continued to stutter. “Y-you are deserving of the highest honour, beings such as them are below you and I after all.”

The Doctor sighed, shaking her head, “how dare you?” She spoke quietly, in an icy tone. “I have no need for soldiers, they’re my friends – though perhaps such a concept is too complex for you to understand.”

“B-but you are the Doctor –“ the creature continued, still determined to dig itself into an even larger hole –“you defended the gates of Trenzalore for a thousand years, destroyed the two most powerful races in all of creation, defeated the great order of the silence –“

“While I would love to stay here and chat about that dazzling list of accomplishments – all of which look great on a resume by the way – can we skip to the part where you give me back my friends and, if you’re lucky, we’ll leave without a fuss.” 

The creature whimpered, “I-I’m sorry but I can’t. They’ve already been processed. They were the last line of stock to be converted before we headed for home.” 

The Doctor’s teasing, playful smirk hardened into a harsh line, features falling into a stagnant, stony stare. Time seemed to stop for a moment as Yaz looked into her eyes, knowing that – even if the Doctor turned her way – she wouldn’t be able to see her. She wanted to reach out, bring that familiar warmth back to her eyes. Right now, the Doctor she knew was barely recognisable. “What did you say?” She murmured. Her body shook minutely as she waited for an answer. 

“They’re dead, I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do.” The Doctor’s posture froze completely rigid, her hand clenching her sonic screwdriver so tight that her knuckles turned white.


	3. Chapter 3

“What?” Ryan breathed, turning to Graham and Yaz, all of which were wearing equally confused expressions. “They made a mistake or something?” 

“When the guard cam past earlier, he mustn’t have detected us, he said it was clear.” Graham explained, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Never mind that, we have to get her attention, now!” Yaz said, trying not to panic. “What if she blows up the ship or something?”

“She wouldn’t do that Yaz,” Graham replied, masking his doubt with a friendly grin, “she wouldn’t hurt anyone if it weren’t necessary.”

“Yeah, and she don’t like guns remember?” Ryan added. Yaz nodded in compliance, but still couldn’t shake the idea from her head, couldn’t stop seeing the Doctor’s face gone cold and still, couldn’t stop remembering her courage and determination. If the Doctor thought they were dead, and she really had done all those things the overseer talked about, she would probably destroy this ship without a second thought. 

Yaz was pulled from her thoughts at the sound of the Doctor’s voice ringing out through the entrance hall, louder than ever. “Here’s one for your history books,” she said, calm and clear, “I think you’re about to learn how I got my names.” She wore a mask of steel, a terrifying calm barely holding back the storm of icy rage brewing behind her eyes. She was going to kill them. In that moment, Yasmin wasn’t sure who the Doctor was anymore. Everything she thought she knew about the woman – the happy-go-lucky, hyperactive joker, that could melt the resolve of the universe with her compassion – only now was that image pulled away to reveal the struggling, broken, husk of a being underneath. Cracks in the mask. “You see,” she continued, “I was just going to destroy your business and report you to the nearest galactic authority for the trafficking and slaughter of countless level 5 sentient beings – but then, like I said, you went and made it personal."

She stepped forwards slowly, each stride seemed to cause the temperature to plummet another few degrees. The three human captives were mesmerised, and their plan to get the Doctor’s attention lay forgotten. The soldier were teetering on the edge of retreat, their backs flattened against the walls, poised to run – but there was nowhere to go. 

The overseer croaked, an involuntary escaping of dread. “W-we were only doing our jobs, that’s just how the business goes, we didn’t know!” It’s voice lowered to a clicking whisper “please, show mercy, please.” Surely now, Yaz thought, you’ve scared them good and proper, now please, find us. 

The Doctor ascended the stair case leading up to the overseer’s raised platform. Her battered boots leaving scraps of mud on the clean white surface. Despite the fact that the creature towered at least two feet above her, it shrunk in on itself, and the Doctor’s presence seemed to loom over it like an imposing, immovable statue. “You know,” she chuckled, “you really should have thought of that before you murdered my friends.” She pulled her sonic screwdriver out of her coat pocket and waved it in front of the creatures ever-bulging eyes. “While we’ve all been standing around chatting, I’ve been scanning this ship for structural weaknesses, and –“ she added, as the pointed the glowing tip of the tool right between the creature’s eyes, “I’ve been studying your biology. Now,” she clapped her hands together, pivoting around on her ankles to face the expectant alien crowd, “I’m a stickler for being kind, but I’m not perfect. My friends have always been the best of me, but you’ve taken them away, and now there’s no one here to stop me. No one to keep promises to, no image or example to uphold.” She sighs – even in her silence, the room is deathly still – she takes a deep breath, letting grief out, pulling rage in. “See this,” she indicates her screwdriver, waving it above her head, “I’ve attuned this device to the genetic frequencies of your bodies, think of that – a signal with the power of time lord dimensional engineering cast out and contained within the orbital radius of this ship. Every molecule in every cell in your entire body will start resonating, oscillating in time, brewing with kinetic energy so powerful it will burn. You will unravel.” She explains the concept with sinister enthusiasm, as if this were just another scientific marvel to rattle on about with enthused passion. “Everything you are tangling up together, scrambling the precise sequences that align to allow your existence. It’s a process of it’s own, just like your ‘processed’ my friends!” She was seething, the mounting volume of her voice still hanging in the air. 

A heavy clicking sound resonated from the crowd of guards, and the Doctor whipped around to the source, pointing her screwdriver. One of the aliens had drawn its weapon, which sparked and smoked with a deafening crack, and now lay at its feet in a smouldering ruin. “Don’t even think about pointing your guns at me. You must know it won’t work, I can’t die.” The Doctor said, matter-of-factly and with such indifference that Yaz felt a shiver run through her. “See Yaz, pretty good hey?” she whispered, smiling faintly, and for one beautiful moment, Yaz thought the Doctor could see her strained expression, hear the thoughts pounding in her head, screaming ‘no.’ Instead, the Doctor raised her sonic up above her head, and pressed it. 

At first, it seemed like nothing was happening. Then, slowly, a haunting feeling began to swell in the space around them. It was a low hum, so low it was difficult to pinpoint it as a sound at all – they felt it, though – it rattled in the spaces between their bones, quivered through their bodies and plucked at their spines like a musician to a pizzicato string. The aliens, however, were more than a little shaken up. They writhed in pain, clutching their heads and rolling on the ground, convulsing. In the centre of it all, indifferent to their whittling, insectile shrieks, stood the Doctor. The three captives watched, horrorstruck, as their dark, scaled skin began to fester and fold away, revealing melting, oozing flesh beneath. Yasmin tried to stop herself from imagining human bodies, boiling and bouncing to the noise – from imagining red blood in place of yellowed flesh. Far off in the bowels of the ship, a crash sounded, sending the ship creaking and jaunting in response. Yasmin thought of the pilots, the guards, all of them reduced to pulp and unable to maintain their course. As the chaos unfolded, the Doctor didn’t move an inch – she simply stared into the building ruin, as if she were looking past it and into another world. 

“Yaz, the glass!” Ryan yelled, indicating the one-way mirror, its powerful shielding flickering into non-existence as the ship began to lose power. He reached out, cautious at first, and upon meeting no resistance, he began pounding on the glass, trying to get the Doctor’s attention. Graham and Yaz joined him, all of them screaming, their strangled cries muffled by the sounds of explosions and crumbling metal.


	4. Chapter 4

By her calculations, it would take approximately ten minutes for her to suffocate in the vacuum of space. The first thing to go would be her eyesight, as she knew from experience – the first things to fade would be the stars around her, and the ruins of the Sagirian ship. After that, the regeneration process would begin, and she would burn out brilliantly in the vast emptiness, the next one along would be dead before they were ever truly alive, truly aware. How many more lives did she have to go? Curiosity was as good a reason as any to find out. Maybe she would keep going on forever, fizzling out, burning, bursting into life only to have it snatched away. A star; forming, burning, collapsing, and forming again, each new face alive only for a glimmer of pain, a moment of stars. Maybe she would find some sliver of strength to carry on, maybe she would claw herself from the wreckage and into the TARDIS. Now, all she did was wait; wait for the world to collapse around her.

They wouldn’t have wanted this, she thought to herself. This voice of compassionate reason often took on the likeness of another; usually Clara, but now she saw Yasmin’s face too – both of them only truly alive in her memory. No, but this is what you deserve. That was the voice of herself, of the boy on Gallifrey sobbing alone into the dark, the lonely warrior surviving at all costs, destroying everything in his path. 

“They can’t be gone, not again, never again!” She screamed, out loud this time. “It’s my fault, it’s always my fault. I thought I could do this again but I’m sick of it! “Bill…” she trails off, and begins muttering names under her breath, as if she were chanting some kind of spell or mantra. “Rose, Donna, Amy, Rory, Sarah Jane, Lucie, Peri, River, Jamie – “ Her words spiralled into intelligibility, rising up once again in a strangled cry. “I can’t do this anymore! Clara, I’m sorry, I can’t, why do I have to… I should have died, this me should never have even been born!” Her final cry sent a stagnant silence over the hall, enough for her to hear the near-silent pounding on the glass. Four knocks. The sounds still sent a shiver through her. The Doctor whipped around, wild eyes clinging onto this newly emerged sliver of hope. She points the sonic screwdriver at the glass, shattering it into near-dust that dances through the air and settles on the forms of her three friends, standing shocked and stricken amongst the carnage. 

The stood still, blinking dust from their eyes and adjusting to the light. Yaz’s eyes were glistening with tears. She didn’t know what to say; what words could possibly suffice?For a moment, the Doctor seemed as if she were unable to react, simply standing there as if she were trying to discern illusion from reality. “Are you really here?” she muttered, voice a hoarse and strangled whisper, “or am I just doing this to myself?” 

Yaz felt a lump rising in her throat, threatening to spill tears from her eyes. “We’re here,” she assured her. The Doctors knees seemed to buckle from beneath her, causing her to stumble forward with a gasp of relief. 

“I thought they’d –“ she darted to the three of them and looked to be going in for an embrace before she stopped herself short. She adjusted her facial expression to appear more cheerful, and rubbed her eyes on her coat sleeve before straightening up and addressing them cautiously. “You were behind the mirror, the whole time?” She ventured, trying to mask her panic, “how much did you see?”

The three of them exchanged a worried glance before Ryan blurted out; “well it don’t matter right now does it?”

“No, not if this ship is about to crash,” Graham added, relieved, “which, by the sounds of it –“ as if on cue, a part of the wall encircling the hallway collapsed inwards, sending a cloud of debris clattering down.

“Right, yes you two, brilliant,” the Doctor said, returning to her usual rapid, energetic tone. “I’d hand out points but I think that one might have been a little to obvious, you gotta really surprise me for a share of these points!” Graham and Ryan gave a half-hearted chuckle, but the Doctor didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she grabbed Yasmin’s hand and started pulling her along, indicating hurriedly for the others to follow. “Come on then!” She chirped, “no time like the present.” 

The Doctor led them back through the entrance – the TARDIS doors flung themselves open to greet them, bathing the crumbling hall in golden light. She rushed them through, taking one final look around at the wreckage before shutting the door behind her and rushing to the controls. 

Ryan, Graham, and Yasmin stood around the outskirts of the console room, clasping the wall for balance as the Doctor rushed around and fiddled with the systems. It took a few minutes for her to stabilise the flight, and by the time she was finished she had to wipe a layer of sweat from her brow with the bottom of her coat. Yaz wondered when she got the chance to wash that thing, one of the perks of having a time machine she supposed. 

“Phew,” she gasped theatrically, sauntering over to the three of them. Before she could make one of her staple boasting remarks, she caught sight of their expressions. “You alright, you three?” She asked, eyes suddenly wide with concern. 

“Just fine Doc, a little shaken up is all,” Graham reassured her, forcing a grin. 

“No, no you’re not alright, look at you!” She stepped in front of Ryan and raised herself on tip-toes. She pulled out her sonic and brought it up to his face to scan him, but he flinched away at the sight of it. She let out a nervous laugh, “you’re all a bit jumpy aren’t ya. You sure they didn’t feed you anything – maybe there was something in the air, livestock processing is nasty stuff – or – “

“Doctor,” Yaz said, interrupting the Doctors spiral of mumbled anxieties, “it’s not that.” 

The Doctor eyed her nervously. She shifted her gaze around the room and flashed them all a nervous, whimpering smile, as if she were on the brink of tears. “You’re afraid of me,” she muttered, already resigned to the truth. Yaz saw no point in refuting it, so she stayed silent in confirmation. “Yeah,” she Doctor sighed. She seemed to shrink in on herself as she let herself down to the floor, half-falling. She hunched her shoulders and turned her gaze away, instead staring at the closed doors at the front of the TARDIS, and to the dark, eerie glow of the universe outside that filtered in, beckoning. The three onlookers exchanged a worried glance, unsure of what to do. 

“Doctor –“ Yaz began, as she lowered herself down next to the Doctor with caution. She’d hope that the rest of that sentence would have come to her by then, but, instead, she stayed silent. 

“It’s okay,” the Doctor replied, still not turning around, “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she sighed, somehow managing to shrink further into herself, “I’m sorry you had to see me like that.” 

“But why, why did you do it? If we were already gone then what was the point?”

She looked up, staring Yaz dead in the eyes with her own – bloodshot and reddening. “Because you were gone, in that moment, to me, you were gone. The universe had a debt to repay, and I collected.”

“You avenged us.” Yaz surmised, her tone cold and distant. 

“I guess so, yeah.” The Doctor shrugged her off, trying to quell the voices starting up in her mind, Clara’s words; I will die and no one, not here or anywhere else, will suffer. She couldn’t do it then, she couldn’t do it again now. Don’t be a warrior, promise me, be a Doctor. 

“Well don’t.” Yaz replied, “if… when something really does happen to us, any of us, don’t take revenge. And never, ever blame yourself.” She reached out and put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. Her muscles were tensed up and shaking, knitted together in knots of anguish. 

“I know you’ve lost people Doc,” Graham piped up, sitting down on the other side of the Doctor, “so have we all. Though from that list of names…” he trailed off as the Doctor eyes met his own, “that’s more than most.” He lent in closer, giving her a cheerful smile. “You’ve got us now, and eventually there’ll be someone else that comes around won’t there?” 

“It’s like me nan always said,” Ryan says, still standing by the far wall and looking out into the distance, “the worst is always coming, but so is the best.” The Doctor whips around, clearly surprised by Ryans most sentimental addition. Yaz looks at Graham, who replies with a proud shrug of the shoulders. Ryan looks taken aback, but continues all the same. “And, err, that’s why you have to keep on going… or something.” He added, as if to add a layer of cool indifference. It didn’t work. 

“Aww, thanks Ryan,” the Doctor sniffs, “see! There is a good surprise, gold star for Ryan!” The Doctor jumps to her feet, rubbing her hands together with excitement. “So,” she says, dancing over to the controls, seemingly cured of her little episode, “where to next team?” 

“Err, actually Doc I was thinking I’d head home.” Graham said. The Doctor looked crestfallen, all of that renewed energy suddenly swept away. “N-not for good!” He added hastily, “just for tonight you know? Just for a little break, that was quite the ordeal.” 

The Doctor forced a smile, “Yeah, sure thing.” 

“In that case, I think I’ll head home too,” Ryan added, “keep ya company.” He was thinking about Graham all alone in that house, how much he had wanted to escape from it. 

“Thanks mate,” Graham said appreciatively. For a moment, he looked as if he was going to go in for another fist bump, but thought better of it and turned the awkward gesture into a sort of half salute. 

“Alright then, back to Sheffield, and I promise it won’t take fifteen tries this time, I’m finally getting the hand of these new systems. Yaz,” she turned to face her, “what about you?” On the surface, it was a question, but anyone could see that the Doctor was pleading. It was the same look she had given her when she’d finally got them all back home the first time. Ready to part ways, Yaz had invited her for tea to give her an excuse to stick around. She was lonely – today had proven that tenfold – and she wasn’t about to leave her friend alone after going through what she did today, after doing what she’d done. 

“Nah,” she shrugged, “I think I’ll stay here for a bit. When I do go back home, it needs to be on the same night we left, promised I’d grab some bread from the shops or I’m going to catch an earful from me mum.” It was as good an excuse as any, and a true one at that. The Doctor’s face lit up with appreciation and relief. Yaz beamed. 

“Off we go then!” She declared, and cranked one of the many levers on the control panel to set them on their way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team TARDIS discuss their next move

“It’s probably about time we came back,” said Graham, as he stepped out of the TARDIS doors and out into the cold night air of 21st century Sheffield, “I can bring some bags with me next time, make the TARDIS a real home away from home.” He waved a warm farewell to the Doctor, which was echoed by Ryan as he followed his grandad out of the ship. 

Yaz followed them, and – before the Doctor could protest – assured her; “be back in a moment, just want to say goodbye yeah?” The Doctor swallowed whatever it was she had been about to say and nodded her approval. “Wait up you two!” She called, waving down Ryan and Graham as they made to head inside their house. 

It was strange seeing the place now, so many years after the many playdates spent there during her youth. Ryans nan would usually look after her grandson after school while his parents were out working, and little Yaz was so often there beside him, tagging along after school so she wouldn’t have to walk home with her agonising sister. The old house looked about the same, minus the rosy tint that all childhood memories seemed to hold, and the feeling that everything else was just a little too big. It didn’t feel right – that house without Grace inside it, the woman who’d shaped that space around herself over the years – no wonder Graham had wanted to escape. 

“You alright Yaz?” Graham answered, turning around on the front doorstep to face her. 

“Yeah, fine, just wanted to make sure you lot were okay s’all.” 

“Well, are we ever?” He chuckled, though his laughter trailed off when they dwelled on his words, on the events they had witnessed. “Thanks for staying with her Yaz,” he added solemnly.

“Yeah, I don’t think I could,” Ryan said, “not right now anyway, I need to think stuff over.” 

“We all do,” she agreed, “but she’s still the Doctor, everybody has things their friends don’t know about, things they’ve done or said. I suppose, we never really thought about who she was before we knew her.”

“Yeah but, those aliens,” Ryan hesitated, as if the memory was too much to bear, "there was an entire ship full of them, armed guards too, they ran a whole organisation based around kidnapping and slaughtering innocents and they were begging for mercy at the mention of her name. What could someone possibly have done to get that sort of reaction from the likes of them.”

“I don’t know…” Yaz replied, her voice growing quiet, “I don’t think I want to either. The point is, the Doctor we’ve met is the real one, maybe she’s changed now, maybe she’s –

“Brutally massacring a ship full of sentient beings doesn’t scream change to me Yaz, “ Graham interjected, “sorry,” he added, at the sight of the blazing hurt in her eyes. “Look,” he added, his voice softer this time, “I dont want to think this – and I hope to god its not true – but it almost seems like she’s putting on an act for us, like she’s toying with us –“

Yaz shook her head, “Isn’t everyone putting on an act for everyone else, that’s just how people are.”

“You don’t need to defend her Yaz,” Ryan said with a sign, “like it or not, she’s not who we thought she was, not just some traveller.” Just a traveller, thought Yaz, but even travellers leave their mark.

I’m not, I mean, it’s pretty clear she cares about us, look at what she did for us, she didn’t even know we were watching, how could it all be an act?

“We saw her when she thought she was alone,” Graham added, “without anyone to prove anything to, teach anything to, and she was just as horrible, maybe more horrible, than anything we’ve faced by her side."

"Isn’t that all the more reason to stay?” She exclaimed, finding herself arguing with herself more than with her friends. “Imagine what she’d do if we left.”

“Yaz, that’s not a good reason to stay with anybody.” He replied, with an unintentionally condescending edge that set Yaz on edge. They were treating her like some lovesick little girl jumping on a motorcycle with a delinquent older boyfriend. She got this kind of talk from senior officers all the time, and there wasn’t much else she hated more than being patronised. 

“You said you could never give this up.” She retorted, a little more aggressively than she had intended. 

“Yeah, but that’s just the thing isn’t it,” he softened his voice, glancing over at the TARDIS standing dormant in the darkness across the street, making sure he wouldn’t be overheard, “I never could. I think that’s what she does, Yaz, all those people… it’s like she pulls them in, that rush of adrenaline, feeling like you’re part of something bigger, like you’re special, like you mean something.” The worst part was, she understood exactly what he was getting at, there was something in the way she moved, forced, quick, deliberate yet seemingly random. The Doctor was imbued with this mass of energy, a vast unending motion, running and thinking and rattling off words at an unnatural pace. Everything she did, she undertook in a manner removed just enough from the way you’d expect a human to move to consign, watching so closely could make your stomach coil in uncanny fear, her unnerving, alien flair. It was intoxicating. “Grace felt it too,” Graham continued, pausing a moment before speaking her name. Even the sound of it still stung his throat to produce. “She looked at me right in the eyes, smiling like she was having the time of her life as she ran off to her death. Back then, I couldn’t understand how she could enjoy danger like that, but now I do, and I know that can’t end well. 

“She tried to stop us from coming aboard,” Yaz reminded him, “she actively discouraged it.” 

“And why would she do that, only to set her mind at ease given what happened to the rest.” 

“We all knew the danger, we were sure.” but when Yaz looked back on that moment, but into the Doctor’s wide, hopeful, intoxicating eyes, she could never have said anything else. Each one of them had been pulled into that glowing charismatic aura, staring into those too-bright-eyes, that too-wide-smile, that steel trap glint in her features that dragged you down, willing. 

“Look,” Ryan said, noticing Yap’s far off expression, “all he’s saying is, maybe we should get out while we can.” He pulled his features into a hard line, almost not believing what he was saying. Somehow, his menial, soul-sucking warehouse job seemed alluring about now, with its stability and lack of stomach churning gore. 

“No,” Yaz cried out, “how can you say that!”

“I don’t know, maybe we all just needed a bit of a wake up call.”

“I mean,” Graham added, a sad smile stretching across his face, “really, this was all too good to be true wasn’t it?”

Her face fell, realising where this was going. “You’re leaving, forever.”

“No, oh… I don’t know Yaz,” Graham shook his head and exhaled deeply, “I need to think. I need to think about Grace, all this time I’ve been using this as an escape, and I know it’s only going to keep on escalating. The stakes are going to keep on rising to drown out the brewing grief,” a soft glaze of tears coated his eyes. He fumbled for his keys in his jacket pocket, turning away from them. “Maybe I just need some time alone.” He pushed open the door, an extra push to get the old hinges moving that sent a loud creak ripping through the suburban night. Graham was always so cheerful, so hopeful, even when he was questioning the Doctor’s actions and rebutting her witty remarks. Could that have all been a front for the turmoil raging beneath?

Ryan looked torn for a moment, his head turning backwards and forwards between his Grandad’s retreating footsteps and Yaz’s desperate expression. He smiled at her, a polite gesture she say straight through. “Someone has to look out for him,” he resigned, making to follow Graham inside.

“What’s wrong,” she asked, “he usually loves the Doctor, those two get on like best mates.” 

“Yeah – I think – I don’t know, maybe he feels betrayed. And… I guess I do too. All that talk about no guns or weapons, the peaceful approach, treating every living creature with respect… it was all just talk, wasn’t it?” He looked to her for guidance, as if she had answers. She was sure that the Doctor had a reason for being so hypocritical, she must have. “And,” he hesitated, taking in a deep breath, “I’m scared. You know me Yaz, you know I would never admit that if it wasn’t really, properly true. The look on her face, the way she gloated before she killed them…” He trailed off.

“It’s okay,” she nodded, searching his resigned expression, “I know.” 

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

“Hmm,” he nodded, breaking her gaze and following Graham inside, closing the door behind him. She was shut out into the near silence of the street; the sound of crickets, far off voices, distant cars. She realised how cold it was, shut off from the warm glow and musty smells of the old house. She’d pursued them under the pretence of reassuring them, though of course, she was the one that needed to be reassured, now more than ever. She made her way back to the TARDIS, plastering a smile on her face as she saw the Doctor waving energetically from the doorway. 

Oh Yaz, the Doctor thought to herself as she waved, always so forgiving, always seeing the best in everything even when there was barely anything there to see. The Doctor had listened into their conversation, of course she had, the curiosity would have been too much to bear. Her fears, of course, had been realised. But here she was, Yasmin Khan, who, after everything, was still willing to give her a chance. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was about to ruin it. 

The Doctor had been so relieved to see her friends again, after just a few minutes of grief they were back, and everything was going to be okay. Now, she saw she was losing her friends just the same, a slow and agonising estrangement brought on by mistrust and fear – fear of her.


	6. Chapter 6

The TARDIS – somewhere that Yaz had spent countless hours laughing (and sometimes screaming) with her friends – had always been a welcoming place. It had always felt warm, a golden glow emanating from within, a taste of wanderlust and magic (or, dimensional engineering) in the air. But now, like everything, it was different. It was difficult for Yaz to pinpoint exactly what had changed; the layout and design was identical as always. It was something in the atmosphere, a cold that made her shiver, not from temperature, but from uncanny discomfort. The asymmetrical, geometric design of the place, with it’s honeycomb walls and clustered, steampunk interior felt alien instead of endearing. The large, amberesque crystals loomed over, imposing instead of beautiful. The sounds of the engines, the whirring and whistling from another dimension now tugged at the fringes of her mind and pushed her into paranoia. She felt the scale of this place, the near infinite corridors and undiscovered rooms waiting beyond their cosy little console room, hiding secrets. Just like the Doctor, she thought.   
She couldn’t help but wonder; if this place was really telepathic, some cosmic entity linked to the Doctor, did a change in her reflect a change in this ship, her home. 

“Right then,” The Doctor’s voice sounded from the other side of the console, obscured by the central pillar, “just you and me Yaz, where shall we go?” She lent out from behind the centrepiece, that ever-present manic gleam in her eyes that, under the lights of the room now harsh instead of pleasantly bright, looked sinister. She wondered if all this had been here all along, and she just hadn’t noticed it. The Doctor noticed her staring, so Yaz flashed her what she hoped was a convincing grin to brush it off. The Doctor looked strained, and her baggy, child-like clothes seemed ill-fitting all of a sudden. She wondered why she worse stuff like that, beyond her initial assumption of quirky alien fashion sense, she wondered if the outlandish attire, the strange mannerisms, were they all to distract from the bigger picture? The hunger and the might behind the eyes? “Any ideas, Yaz?” The Doctor pressed her. 

“Err, maybe somewhere a bit more laid back.”

“Laid back,” she echoed, a grin spreading from cheek to cheek, same old Doctor. “I could go for something like that right now. No planets, no people, no problems to be swept up in. We could just go sightseeing like good space tourists, no interfering… yeah.” She seemed to be running through ideas in her head, where best to go to distract Yaz from what was standing right in front of her. “Oh! I know, how about something a little closer to home, something you can see from Earth – something you’ll have some context for back home. Yaz,” she declared, leaning in close and raising an eyebrow, “how would you like to see a nebula up close and personal? I find them very relaxing, you can just sort of look out and drift away…”

“Sounds perfect,” Yaz grinned, thankful for the change of pace. 

“Right then, if you’d do he honours,” she indicated the large silver lever extending from the TARDIS console, the one that all four of them had pulled together, a promise to one another to travel together as a team. 

The TARDIS burst to life with that familiar wash of adrenaline and uncertainty, and carried them away. The Doctor partook in her usual dance, wrangling different contraptions on the console, cranking levers and turning knobs with unnecessary enthusiasm. She would reel backwards and wave her arms around theatrically, grinning at Yaz as if expecting a reaction. Now more than ever, it all felt like a show, a performer saying giving her a taste of adventure, best seat in the house. Yaz played along, holding on tight and stumbling around with the turbulence. She feels detached from it all, but can’t shake the feeling that she’s just overreacting, being a coward. 

The ship came to an abrupt halt, the loud wheezing and churning sounds of the vehicle I flight suddenly replaced with a smooth and tranquil hum. “So,” the Doctor clapped her hands together, making a sweeping gesture towards the TARDIS doors, “here we are then, step out – actually, don’t step out, really don’t because you’ll drift into the vacuum of space” she cleared her throat, “open those doors and observe at a safe distance, and you’ll see the Messier 8 celestial object, better known as the Lagoon nebula.” Yaz smiled, hesitating for a moment before bounding towards the doors. Swinging them open, a haze of light struck her face, blinding her for a moment. She reached her hand out of the doorframe, feeling that cool, (though heated by a considerable amount by the temporary atmospheric shielding around the TARDIS) absent air. Surrounding her was what looked like an enormous water colour splash made on the canvas of the sky itself. Clouds of entangled greens, pinks, oranges; a cacophony of stardust swirling before her eyes. The sight of it pushed all worry from her mind, until she heard a voice behind her; “So, what d’ya think?” Did she think she could win back her trust with a nebula and a bit of peace and quiet? Just throw the silly little human girl in front of a sight that will blow her mind, make her yours. She didn’t think that was true, or at least, she couldn’t bare it if it was. “Yaz?” The Doctor reiterated. 

Sighing, and pushing away her doubts, Yaz reached backwards, without taking her eyes off of the sight before her, and found the Doctor’s hand. She clasped it gently and led her forward to stand beside her at the edge of the threshold. “It’s amazing,” she said, grateful. 

“Do you want me to tell you about it?” The Doctor asked. She wasn’t one accustomed for standing in silence, and would be far more comfortable filling the empty space with passionate technical jargon. 

“Ok,” Yaz replied, lowering herself carefully to the ground and letting her legs swing free over the limitless vacuum of space. She felt like a kid again, sitting up on the railing and swinging her legs over the drop, filling her mind with a mix of pride and terror, knowing the slightest movement could send her tumbling down. It was that twist of vertigo when you looked down on the top floor of a skyscraper. The way that Yasmin had always dealt with fear in her life; she stared it down, made it part of her, internalised that knot in her stomach that feared the fall, and conquered it, head on. It was part of her job, her dream since she was a kid, to stare fear in the face and act quickly, rationally, courageously. In this way, looking down into the bottomless void and into the eyes of the Doctor was one and the same.


	7. Chapter 7

The Doctor followed Yaz’s lead and sat down beside her at the edge of the TARDIS landing. She pointed out into the cosmos, leading Yasmin’s eager eye. “This,” she explained, “is the fabric of all life in this universe. Life is a product of light, and light” – she swept her palm over the horizon, the never-ending cloud of colour – “that is a product of these gases,”“Just a handful of elements combining under high pressure, pulled in by their own interstellar gravity,” _why did you choose us, what do you gain?_ – “to cause a massive chain reaction. High energy fusion,” h _ow could you stand by and listen to them scream?_ “this dust is the beginning of everything, and the end,” _why do they fear you?_ “when a star goes supernova, it explodes into dust again, and the cycle begins anew,” _bringer of darkness, doctor of war_ , “stars are the greatest and most fundamental beings in this universe, spreading light and heat and energy,” who are you? “all other life is secondary, unsustainable without them. They were the first to be born and they will be the last thing to die,” _why do they call you the oncoming storm?_ “and the pinprick in the life of the universe that is the era of starlight will be over, and nothing will remain.” _Why do you care about me?_ “There will be no matter to decay, no energy to be conserved, no concept of time to drive these processes forward, no entropy… Yaz, are you alright?” The Doctor’s whimsical tone was swapped out for one of concerned urgency, pulling Yaz out of her thoughtful stupor. “Oh no, did I get too deep?” She asked, searching Yaz’s vacant expression, “I do that sometimes, I’m just rambling, sorry.”

“Doctor,” she began – it was like ripping off a bandaid, starting was the hardest part, you had to do it quick, and you had to keep on going – “back there on the ship, you didn’t look like you were going to move. You were going escape, right? You weren’t just going to stand there.” It wasn’t the first question she had expected herself to ask, but she had to gauge just what she and her friends meant to the Doctor, why she would go to such lengths to avenge them, all the while presenting them with an illusion of herself.

She paused, thinking for one terrible moment that the Doctor was going to ignore her completely. “Yaz, do we have to?” Her voice was small and desperate, a far cry from the passionate, convicted tone in which she had described the nature of the universe.

“No,” Yaz replied hurriedly, preparing to drop the subject.

“No,” she sighed, “you’re right, I do.” She exhaled deeply and stared out into the distance, donning that far-off expression Yaz recognised from the Sagirian ship, one that was staring back into the past with no hope of return. “I don’t know, honestly Yaz I don’t. Last time I was dying, I promised myself it would finally, finally be for good, but I gave myself another chance, from a single spark of hope, one final chance to prove it was worth it all. Losing you all so soon, so terribly… I think that was enough to soil that chance.”

“Doctor –“ Yaz began, knowing that there wasn’t anything she could say could possibly suffice.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you all this. It was just supposed to be a bit of fun, just knocking about from world to world, seeing the sights, righting wrongs. It’s not fair of me to put all this on you, on any of you. It never ceases to amaze me that, no matter how many times I perpetuate this sick cycle, it never gets any easier to fulfil.” Her voice was strained, her tone – unbearably lonely.

“Why do you do it then?” She pried softly.

“What else is there? For someone like me… this is all I have.” She chuckled, “It sounds silly, all I have is the entirety of time and space, so why am I complaining? It – all of it – is getting smaller by the day, because every time I see something new, the universe shrinks, just a little. Every moment I continue living expands my frame of reference, everything else only ends faster relative, everyone else only dies quicker.” Yaz was at a loss for words, but the Doctor didn’t seem to notice her silence. She simply stared off into the stardust, violent hues dancing in her eyes, golden in the light. “I’m not being selfless of magnanimous when I travel with you, It’s not a privilege to travel with me, it’s a service. Without you, I think I’d go insane, my ego would get the better of me, it’s happened before, and I’m just lucky that someone put a stop to it before I did some real damage. On my own, I start to see the universe as a game, with rules binding together the code of time and space, rules that can be bent, circumvented, even broken. That was the downfall of my people, thinking they could be lords of time. I need you because of the way you see the universe; a collection of brand-new experiences, you look out on it all with such hope and wonder, and because you can see it, I can too. I put forward the best version of myself, the one I want you to see, because it keeps that hope alive, it keeps me alive. I’m not doing this out of charity, or just for a bit of fun, it’s a necessity. I’m not a friend, I’m not a benefactor – I’m a leech, and I will destroy you.” Her words hung in the air, final, absolute. The Doctor let out a gasp, so suddenly that it made Yaz jump. It was as if the Doctor was only just realising how much she had said, the thoughts that had been running through her head immortalised and solidified in words – words she could never take back. Yaz looked into her eyes for a moment, those eyes that were suddenly so vulnerable, so scared. The echoes of thirteen lives past extended backwards through the iris, layers of browns and greens and blues, conveying rage, love, terror, despair, and everything in between.

A sad smile crept across Yasmin’s lips, still lacking the words to speak. She lent forwards and rested her head on the Doctor’s shoulder, offering the only small comfort she could think of until she found the right words to say. She felt the Doctor’s breathing against her ear, the rapid four-beat pounding of her hearts, the steady rise and fall of her shoulder interrupted by the occasional shudder; threatening tears. Yaz closed her eyes and let the lights of the nebula dance red patterns on her eyelids, and felt the Doctor’s arm rise tentatively to rest, draped around her neck.


	8. Chapter 8

There was nothing else for it; she would have to erase her memory. Right here, right now; hands on the temples, pull away the last few hours, pull away all that fear and confusion, take away that look in her eyes always asking ‘why?’ The Doctor stared out into the depth of the Lagoon Nebula as she contemplated the notion, running her fingers absent-mindedly through Yap’s thick dark hair. She could feel her breath against her shoulder, could almost feel the thoughts racing around in her head, trying to form an answer. She’d gone and done it now; spilled too much, more than she had ever said, even to herself. Travelling now would never be the light-hearted prance from world to world, the fickle chase of the odd distress call or imaginative whim; every time Yaz looked at her it would be in fear, in pity, and worst of all, in awe. _How could you be in awe of something like me? How do you manage to care?_ It almost would have been easier if they had abandoned her altogether, at least it would have shown her – once and for all – that these days were over, that the Doctor was a creature best left alone. She’d have to do the same to Graham and Ryan; striving for their forgiveness felt like an insurmountable challenge, after all, what could she possibly say? She could take them back to Kragnir, back to the violet forests, back to explaining the unique lifecycle of the alien fauna and see the wonder in their eyes, the questions forming in their minds, eager. Time could be rewritten; that was the core of the Time Lord’s manipulations, delving into memory and shaping it accordingly. History was written by the victors, so they said, and who is more victorious than the malevolent lord, who collects the spoils of war. The Doctor never had a talent for the telepathic, but this was simple enough. A simple mind, a simple task – and all would be forgiven.  

“Yaz?” The Doctor ventured, shaking her shoulder slightly to jostle the girl from her stupor. 

“Hmm,” she murmured drearily. It seemed she had been on the cusp of sleep.  

“Can I show you something?” The Doctor tried to keep her voice calm and jovial, as if this was a trivial request. 

 “Of course,” Yaz smiled, sitting up and pushing herself back slightly into the safety of the TARDIS, the nebula still wringing and weaving around them. 

 “May I?” the Doctor raised her hands towards the sides of Yaz’s head, trying desperately to stop them from trembling. 

 Yaz nodded, searching the Doctor’s eyes for some clue as to what was about to happen. “I want to help you understand, so maybe –“ _tell her what she wants to hear, whisper lies right into those bright, trusting eyes –_ “maybe you can help me.”

 A smile dawned on the girl’s face, so happy to be trusted, to be confided in, to be able to help. It broke the Doctor’s hearts. The Doctor splayed her hands, extending her fingertips to rest against the girl’s temples. She put down her roots, searching every pathway, every door leading back into the beautiful pinprick that was the life of Yasmin Khan. Her fingers were hooks in a glassy pond, ready to reach and rip away her bounty, ready to disrupt that perfect surface, a ripple in the water that would never still. 

 “You ready?” She asked, though it was more of a question to herself. How could she ever be ready for this?

 Yaz nodded, closing her eyes. “It’s okay,” she whispered, “I trust you.”

 And those were the words, the simple words, that shattered her. She couldn’t. She would never forgive herself if she did. She blinked, and suddenly it was Clara kneeling before her, eyes full of tears and heart full of the strength that the Doctor never had. _The future is promised to no one, Doctor, but insist upon my past. It is mine._ She thought of herself – himself, as it had been – wandering the desert grasping at the straws of memories pulling away just before he could reach them; a girl, a name, a love, a raven. And, of course, she thought of Bill, so quick, so clever, _imagine if someone did this to you._ It would be oh so easy, but she had given up on the easy path a long time ago. The last straw was Yasmin herself. She reached into her mind and saw only love, the hope and strength that the Doctor craved so desperately, the reserves she would feed off in their adventures to come. “I’m sorry,” she blurted out, “I’m sorry, I can’t –“ She pulled her fingers away from Yasmin’s head and clambered to her feet. She walked briskly back inside the TARDIS, still shaking the feeling from her mind; the feeling that had overwhelmed her as she reached out to Yaz. The unique, endearing hope held by so much of humanity – and by every one of her friends. Their essence was always the same, a thread that carried through them all. Even if that friendship was forfeit, the Doctor couldn’t bring herself to betray them, to steal the most precious commodity of such a rapidly decaying soul; time. 

 “Doctor?” Yaz called out, her voice heavy and drowsy as she tilted her head to follow the Doctor’s movements. “Doctor, where are you going? Wait!” She called after her. The Doctor didn’t look back as she walked purposefully out of the console room and into one of the many spirally corridors, a metal panelled door clasping shut behind her. 

 The last few moments were a blur for Yaz. She had felt another voice push its presence into her consciousness, one that wasn’t her own. It wasn’t the Doctor’s voice, or at least, not the Doctor she had come to know. That presence had been gone so quickly that she hadn’t had the chance to reach out and acknowledge it, and traces of it lingered. Her mind felt… open. Her senses were heightened, and for the first time, she sensed the existence of a colossal being lurking within the ship, one of incalculable size and complexity; what she suspected was the TARDIS itself. 

 She was worried about the Doctor; about what she would do after running off like that. Yaz just wanted to help, but understood that the Doctor couldn’t share everything, that whatever she had been about to unfold had been too much to bear. That was okay, she could wait, and would do anything to bring their team back together, even if it was different than before. Yaz got to her feet and paced around the console room, trying to get a sense of the being that resided within. Even now, that brief connection to a higher plane was fading, and trying to hold onto it felt like trying to trap smoke between your hands. She looked up at the centre, heaving pipes encased in that amber glass that she always saw the Doctor talking to. 

 “Err, hello,” she ventured, realising how silly she must seem. “She talks to you as if you’re alive, as if you can hear. Well, if you can, then, please open the door.” Nothing happened. Yaz stroked the edge of the console – something else she had watched the Doctor do on numerous occasions – “she needs my help, I know it… please.”

 To her surprise, the metal panels slid open with a clang, parting to reveal a dark corridor beyond. Yaz beamed, “thanks.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yaz touches the TARDIS telepathic circuits with the sole desire to find the Doctor, leading her through the bowels of the ship and into the mind and memories of the Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure about the direction this is taking but w all this supernatural trippy stuff but it makes some great angst to have Yaz witness events from the Doctor's past without just having an exposition dump from the alien shitstick herself

She jumped down from the central landing and made to go down the winding corridor in search of the Doctor. Before she could get far, however, there was a snap that came from the control room behind her. She turned to see a brilliant light emanating from a small window that had opened in the surface of the console. Other sounds followed suit; a swelling, humming song that seemed to oscillate between harmonious and assonant by the second, beauty that grated on the ears and defied everything her ear was naturally conditioned to expect. She found her concern over the fate of the Doctor drowned out by that intoxicating song. She wondered if this was the voice of the TARDIS, the one that the Doctor could presumably hear as she wandered its halls. There was no voice per se, rather, it was a feeling, something that stirred deep inside. It communicated in the same, subtle way that one could ascertain another’s deepest thoughts by watching the way their eyes moved under the light, forming words; _listen._ She felt herself drawn to the glow – her feet moved under her without any conscious instruction – and, as she stood over what dwelled beneath the metal grating and crystalline glazing of the console, that light pierced her eyes and saw right through to her soul. There was a sort of rigged fleshy substance underneath, transparent and reflecting light from deep within. She reached out and touched it. Her fingers barely made contact with the substance before a sharp sting shot through her hand and up through the nerves of her arm. That electric feeling seemed to rocket itself through her body like a signal, sending her head throbbing. She jumped back in surprise, and the grating suddenly slammed itself shut, concealing the light under the metal trappings of the consoles interface. Yaz rubbed her temples, trying to reorient herself. _Going to find the Doctor, right,_ she reminded herself. Was the ship trying to sidetrack her on purpose? And what was that fleshy stuff? Yaz couldn’t ignore the notion of a living organic being beneath the machinery around her, which – though it would explain a lot – was a disturbing prospect. 

As she began her descent into the bowels of this creature, she couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding, that she was heading towards something that should never be disturbed. That feeling was back – of a familiar place twisted into something wholly wrong. The goofy spaceship full of bright lights and quirky decor now emanated a tone of clinical dark, an ancient machine driven to sentience through the tests of time. Secrets beckoned behind every door, and Yaz had to concentrate to keep her priorities in mind as she wandered. Whenever she’d walked these halls, they always twisted into whichever path she needed – a bedroom when she was tired, a wardrobe, a bathroom, a library, even a swimming pool – but now, it didn’t seem to be leading her anywhere but down, down into the crawling depths of an infinity unexplored by all but one, who, to Yaz, was just as ancient and mysterious as the machine itself. She was scared, even more than she’d been back on the Sagirian ship watching aliens wither and scream – and was that _voices?_

The jarring sounds that echoed in the halls were solidifying, forming words, whispers, remnants of long-faded shouts. 

“Doctor!” Someone called out, a woman’s voice, “what have you got locked up in here? What are they?” Yaz turned to the sound, catching a glimpse of a figure, a flicker in the air. Her head was pounding as more wispy figures converged, passing through and around her like ghosts; a short woman in a red dress, a woman in purple with short cropped hair, a young girl in a striped shirt, a young man sporting a kilt, a woman in star-patterned dungarees – on and on they went, all bleeding into one. Yaz shook her head violently, trying to dispel the apparitions, but still they swarmed, like insects. All of their voices were sounding at once, forming one incoherent wall of noise. Yaz clasped her hands over her ears, those few individual words piercing through the timbre; all of them crying out the name of the one she searched for; Doctor. She wanted to scream. Before the madness enveloped her entirely, she saw her. The one clear figure among the chaotic visions; the only one who remained. The Doctor stood at the far end of the hall, her posture hunched and brooding. She looked Yaz directly in the eyes, then turned away, fading into obscurity. _She wants me to follow._

“Doctor!” She called after the apparition, the noise around her fading mid yell, leaving her voice hanging in the silence, only the distant hum of the ship’s great mechanical engines and the thrumming beat of her heart. That connection, the thing she had felt only for an instant as she faced the Doctor in front of the nebula, it was growing. The places where her fingers had touched her skin spread downwards and took root, spores spreading, water always flowing on to a greater body. It was overwhelming. That light inside the TARDIS had acted as a catalyst, sparking the brief connection into existence. The ship was leading her, she realised, leading her straight to the Doctor even when she didn’t want to be found. She pressed onwards.

She passed all manner of doors and all manner of corridors. Each seemed to have been plucked from a different time and stitched together into a patchwork of culture clashing in a way that was both jarring and beautiful. There; an art deco suite lined with sturdy geometric curves, rich wooden floors and clashing patternry, there, a clinical grey hall lined with long glass windows onto a starry sky beyond like a stock-standard futuristic spaceship, there, a hallway straight from home, simple white painted doors and old carpet. Every now and then her head would twinge, and a voice would cry out or whisper in her ear, voices from long ago or yet to come. Memories and premonitions. With them, the Doctor would appear, staring unfathomably, leading her onwards. After some time, she came upon an intricate oaken door in a cobble-stoned corridor resembling a medieval castle. The door was marked; room 12. Here, the sounds and trails that had been leading her culminated. The door may as well have been flashing red and buzzing at her the way it seemed to scream out. She was there, Yaz knew it.

She pushed on the door, expecting to find herself in yet another endless corridor, but instead, what greeted her was an open field of long red grass. She turned to find that the door she had passed through moments before had vanished, and that more of the same landscape stretched on in every direction. The crimson reeds lapped at her calves, an incalculable number of dull suns blaring down like fluorescents in a deep blue sky. The place was unlike anywhere she had ever seen, and the mere feeling of standing in a different gravitational field, under so many suns, Yaz could feel that this was a different planet – and she could hazard a guess at which. Whatever small part of the Doctor that was leading her looked out upon this scene with a longing so heavy it brought tears to Yasmin’s eyes. The Doctor reached out to it with a mixture of fierce hunger and crushing melancholy, a deep pull of nostalgia and regret. The sound of laughter carried itself on the wind, and two small figures brushed past, parting the grass in their wake and letting the ferns and dirt tossed up carry themselves away on the breeze. Two boys chased each other through the field. One of them stopped in his tracks, and – to her horror – stared Yaz right in the eyes. He looked about the age of ten or eleven, sporting a mop of sandy hair and wide, curious eyes. He cocked his head to one side, as if trying to focus on something that wasn’t quite there.

“Theta!” The other called out, a smaller boy, cheeks flushed and panting, “come on.”

“I thought I saw…” he said, taking a step closer to Yaz, “nevermind,” he dismissed, letting the other boy drag him away by the arm. The pair were gone as quickly as they had appeared and – in the place of the sandy-haired boy – there stood the Doctor. For the first time, she smiled, just faintly, just enough to give Yaz hope enough to keep following her down this rabbit hole. She’d said it before, hadn’t she? _I trust you._


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to include a scene from 'Night and the Doctor' because I absolutely love Paul Mcgann and I tear up every time I watch that clip. Things have gotten a little metaphysical, but I do love my weird imagery and think it makes for a more interesting read than (the albeit more grounded and realistic) straight exposition?? I hope??

She stepped forwards and the grass shrivelled to wisps at her feet, walls of reddish stone building themselves up into a cavernous enclosure. Sombre figures in hooded robes stood like sentenials. 

“Will it hurt?” A voice sounded, a man’s. She turned to face him; bloodied and dishevelled, clothed in tattered leather and a long, sullen expression. He held a goblet of whitish liquid in his hands, held at a distance as if he were repulsed or even afraid of it. 

“Yes,” one of the hooded strangers responded. 

“Good,” he grimaced, dark eyes narrowed, that same far-off star Yaz recognised from the blonde-haired woman she’d come to know. She was there, in Yaz’s head, looking upon this moment with shame and with sadness. _This is the moment I never returned from. The moment I gave up on the Doctor and became something else._ She approached the man standing before her, feeling what he felt as he stared into the contents of that glass, staring death in the face, death and rebirth into a monster of his own making. _Friends, companions I’ve known, I salute you. Physician, heal thyself…_

The sky went dark. A crack of light blazed across it that Yaz would have mistook for lightning if it wasn’t for the barrage of explosions that followed, metal scrap and debris falling flaming down like a hailstorm. She was back in the field, but the grass was on fire. Great orange flames crackled and consumed, engulfing the once beautiful world. A man trekked through the fire, a worn and unforgiving face, a gun strapped to his back. _Guns, never use ‘em. Brains beat bullets._ Time sped around her, the eye of the storm oncoming, she watched as he aged, face folding in on itself, debris filling the field as corpses appeared – one by one – to litter the landscape. The sky cycled blue to burnt orange to black, the burning field blew away on the wind and the barren earth hardened to harsh red sand. Hundreds of years – no, thousands – hurtled past her, and she felt the toll of every one. He walked towards a barn on the horizon, and the corpses were stacked so high they blotted out the suns. A towering mass of dark, singed bodies, weighing him down. _What did you do?_

She felt the planet crack and rumble beneath her feet; it was obliterated, it was ripped from this place and forced through an infinitesimal crack and into a waiting dimension; in her mind, it was both, and it always would be. All of it fell away to a bright void of light. It was the TARDIS, though not in any state she’d seen it in. The walls were white and clinical, the central console was smaller, sporting less of its characteristic random levers and hourglasses and biscuit dispensers. She watched it transform, footsteps trailing across the floor like those of a ghost, coming and going while one stayed still, standing by that old console, stroking it with all the love in the universe. It transformed, the ship reinventing itself around her. The walls blacked and rusted to beige, the lights growing cracked and caked with dust. Great tendrils of stone weaved up out of the ground and trailed down from the ceiling, and the bright central glow fermented to a phosphorescent blue. Just as it transformed, the figure in the centre devolved into a crouching position, hands over its head, shaking. 

The world solidified, and Yaz made her way towards what could only be the Doctor. Thatsame coat of brown, spoiled leather quivering over twitching limbs, back wracked with sobs. 

“Doctor?” She asked, reaching out –

“They’re gone,” he whimpered. Without warning, he jumped to his feet, rounding on her with fire in his eyes. There he was, born from war, tempered in torture and grief and guilt. “Don’t you understand!” He yelled, stepping towards her, shoulders rounded, ready to pounce. “I killed every,” he pounded his chest to emphasis each word, “last, one!” His wild eyes drove her away – within them, she saw worlds burning. He sighed, turning to face the back of the TARDIS doors – a magical doorway into a world of splendour, his prison. “But why am I still here?” 

The scene melted away and she faced a mirror, though the reflection that greeted her was not her own. A young woman looked back at her, same age, same wanderlust, same unending, reckless compassion. She had yellowish blonde hair not unlike the Doctor Yaz knew, her lips betrayed a mixture of love and mischief – a thirst for something more. _I want more. More of the universe. More time with you._

“Rose,” he said, a tall man with spiked dark hair and sad eyes. They were there, in the mirror, but when Yaz looked to where the man should have been, her Doctor was standing beside her; those same, sad eyes reflected back at the man she used to be. A crack split down the middle of the mirror, two halves forever separated, shattered. Beyond it lay a swirling void, an incalculable number of adventures and hardships, loves and friendships, spreading across millennia. _I had hope. I felt as if I was redeemed, that I could go back to the way things used to be, when I was just a coward running from a home in turmoil, a crackpot old fool off to see the stars. I had them._

She was in the field again; restored, revived. The grass was growing back, tufts of crimson sprouting from the earth. A figure stood among it, a shadow, obscured in the blinding suns. The Doctor looked down upon it all with desperation, with shame, a mixture of longing and disgust that drove her mad. One by one, more bodies joined her among the grass. There was nowhere near as many as before, but nor were they a hulking, heaving mass of faceless fodder – each body was distinct, and looking upon any one of them flooded Yaz’s subconscious with an unbearable array of guilt and joyous longing. She paced through the rows and rows of them, towards the figure toiling in the centre. There was a couple clutching one another tightly; a young woman with vibrant ginger hair swept across her face, held by a young man with scraggly brown hair. Beside them, a woman wearing a long, glamorous dress. Her mass of blond girls obscured her features, and she was tightly clutching a glowing device not dissimilar to the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver. Another couple; a small woman with dark hair and eyes bulging wide and somehow curious even in death, a man reaching out to her but not able to touch, a kind face framed by a dark beard and close-cropped hair. A young woman with wild coiled hair, a denim jacket pinned with a colourful array of quirky pins and badges, suggesting a warm and wild personality cruelly silenced. A single tear sat, still wet, just below her eye. Another woman, dressed in a purple skirt, icy eyes reflecting fiery skies that weren’t there, an absence of stars. There were more, stretching as far as the eye could see, new corpses. _The pattern continued as it always had, and I came to remember why I left my title behind all those years ago._ The grass wasn’t red; she realised, not like it was before. The grass was green in patches, green as the very Earth she hailed from – it was soaked in blood. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the bodies laying closest to the Doctor. She started into her own empty, lifeless eyes – the white glaze of death taking hold, rigid limbs sprawled beside her compatriots until the end, Ryan and Graham, who lay equally lifeless beside her. Memories and premonitions. 

She gulped, turning back to the Doctor, so close now. They were an overlapping series of images, a three dimensional being flickering between countless states; a flash of a striped scarf, white ruffles, a bowtie, she couldn’t keep track. A snake, scrounging along, consuming, consuming, poisoning its victims, venom coursing through them telling them to follow, telling them to run and jump and risk it all, to sacrifice, to be a hero, to be brave. It shed its skin, and let it wither in the past, always moving ever onwards to the next. _I am a leech, and I will destroy you._ Yaz shook her head, trying to silence the Doctor’s voice growing ever louder in her mind, that deep and utter loathing drowning out her own thoughts. She was here, she could feel it, the eye of the oncoming storm. Whichever fallow corner of the TARDIS that the Doctor had hidden herself, she had found it. She reached out to that blurred, ever-shifting mass, and touched it. For an instant, one impossibly tiny instant, it was her, just her, trapped in a moment. Her Doctor; not the Doctor of war, not the bringer of darkness, not the formidable warrior soaked in the blood of billions – no, just her mate the Doctor. The Doctor who came round for tea and attempted to make small talk hilarious to behold. The Doctor who cared for every one of them as deeply as she had for all those who came before, and those who would come, for as many lives as she may live. 


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor was in her study – not her regular, run-of-the-mill study – this was different, a sanctuary of sorts, buried deep within the structural memory of the TARDIS. She rarely came down here, though she recalled her time spent here trying to piece together her fragmented memory of a ghost called Clara, brooding over the loss of her family, the Ponds, recuperating after the travesty of the time war, and dwelling on the beauty of a certain Rose; it was, in short, a place that held all of her worst and most desperate memories. It was a small place, a desk, a set of shelves housing a few of her most sentimental items; some photographs, books, and various contraptions. It was also the only room with a bed of her own. It was small, plain, and rarely slept in. The TARDIS blue duvet was rather tempting right now though, it was the best place in the universe to bury one’s head and hide from creation. 

She’d lost her friends today, not one, but twice. She had thought them dead, crushed and minced and tortured beyond belief. Then she had watched them turn away in fear and disgust from a friend they had decided so erroneously to trust. Erasing their memories, retconning her mistake, that was out of the question. That was just one more shred of guilt upon a pile already threatening to crush her to death. She couldn’t handle it. What could she tell them? Nothing, she decided. She would simply drop Yaz back on Earth so she could go on with her life and forget about her. There was nothing left for her in this universe or the next. 

Her head twinged with pain, a single stab. She clasped her forehead, furrowing her brow and trying to place the feeling that was beginning to overcome her. She could feel a presence inside her subconscious, something tiny, screaming out. She closed her eyes in concentration.

A field of red grass surrounded her, bodies littering the landscape of her once beautiful home. The sky was turning to that dusky golden shade of twilight, suns setting and framing the piercing towers etched into the silhouette of the horizon. She felt a hand on her back, gentle, cautious. She turned and found herself looking into the bright and glimmering eyes of Yasmin Khan, tears forming, a deep sadness bubbling behind them, about to overflow. How can she be here? She thought. She was about to open her mouth and say the same when the vision pestered out into darkness. The study swam back into view just as a strangled, terrible scream cut through her brooding silence. 

It was then that the connection was solidified. The door to a mind left slightly ajar through telepathy – the fizzling energy of a mind dipped into but never disturbed – catalysed by the power of the TARDIS and whatever transcendental entity occupied it, and driven onwards with the curiosity and determination of one human mind that wanted desperately to help her friend. Driven by hope, driven by fear. Yaz couldn’t bear it any longer, the cacophony consuming her, every moment of every day in a billion, billion years. She’d wanted to understand the Doctor; and here she was, the path they had walked laid out in front of her like a map, crossing the bounds of time and space and the universes themselves. A corridor swam in and out of view; the same numbered wooden door looming imposing before her. She could feel her head burning, her vision clouding with golden light, pure swirling energy like the stuff that had radiated that unnatural, intoxicating wisdom from beneath the TARDIS console. She couldn’t stand. Her knees buckled as she clasped she sides of her head, all her pain, her fear, her determination culminated into one blood-curdling scream that tore at her throat, as if only to remind her that she was made of flesh and blood. The sound ripped through the pain as the only tangible sense left to her, the rest of the universe was shouting back with the force of all things; Doctor. It was a cry for help. She could never refuse. 

The Doctor dashed up from her desk and raced to the door, Yaz’s cry still ringing out. She pulled open the door and saw her there, keeling, tears streaming down her face. Her jaw quivering as the sound dispersed, scattering out into the infinite confines of their own shared dimension. A whimper escaped her lips as her form slumped down to the ground. The Doctor caught her in her arms, mind racing. How could this have happened? How could she have found her, let alone gotten inside her head. 

“Yaz?” She said, voice sharp and urgent. The girl twitched, her eyes flickering open to reveal a blinding golden light, twisting and writhing in the air, infecting her. 

“Doctor?” She whispered, her voice weak, haggard in a throat ripped roar by the terrible sound. “I can’t see, it’s too bright.”

“Shhh,” she hushed, “I know.” She pressed her fingers gently to her temples, just as she had earlier, when she had dared to believe she could take something so precious from this girl. She pressed her forehead to Yaz’s own, staring directly into the brilliant light, letting it stain spots of mottled colour in her vision, letting it sting. “Oh, Yasmin Khan,” she murmured, “you brilliant girl,” she inhaled deeply, once again opening that connection between them, pulling back all that energy, those borrowed feelings and memories. “All your pain, it’s mine again.” The light began to fade, and slowly, the deep shining brown hidden beneath grew visible, the golden glow dancing in spirals from one consciousness to the next. The Doctor pulled it back inside, letting it flow through her eyes and out into every nerve ending, every neuron. She felt the weight of her life press down upon her afresh, reigniting all those feelings and memories long buried. The weight of it all pushed her back, hitting the surface of the wooden door behind her. 

She opened her eyes to find Yasmin Khan peering back at her, a look of confusion and concern on her face. “Doctor?” She murmured, “that light… where did it go?” She began to keel over. The Doctor launched forwards to catch her once again, gasping under the weight of her lives felt tenfold. So much for saying too much, she thought, for sharing more than you ever have, even to yourself. And there she was, the girl who still believed in her, who put herself through hell just to make sure she was all right, despite her fear, – despite the Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [](https://ibb.co/GVzDzQg)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the penultimate chapter...

Yaz regained consciousness one nerve at a time, senses fading into life around her. There was something soft at her back and the Doctor’s voice swam in and out of tangibility, seeming to float bodiless on the air. 

“What were you playing at, hey?” she sounded angry. “There’s no way she could have accessed the telepathic circuits alone, what did you do?” Yaz stirred gently rubbing her eyes. They still stung with the lingering presence of something far too bright, and the world was glazed in mottled spots as if she were viewing it through cellophane. The blurred figure of the Doctor was pacing around a small room, addressing the ceiling with wild eyes. “Hey, listen to me!” She shouted, slamming her fist down open a wooden desk nearby. Yaz realised that she was addressing the ship, it whirred in response that carried a hint of indignation. “She could have died, you know that?” The Doctor continued. Once again, the ship relayed its response, once again, more a feeling than a counterpoint. “Oh no, don’t give me that!” The Doctor snapped, “what if I hadn’t gotten to her in time? What if she…” the Doctor trailed off and sank into a plain wooden desk chair with a sigh. Yaz narrowed her eyes to undetectable slits so she could could continue listening in unquestioned. “Even though I did get to her, do have any idea how much you hurt her?” The Doctor looked down at Yaz lying on the bed, her body still feverish and weak. “You knew how this would play out, you knew where her thoughts would lead her. What were you trying to prove?” She threw her hands up in the air in a way that Yaz would have usually found endearingly eccentric. Now it seemed an extension of her desperation, her indignation towards the universe itself. Voices fading from her mind’s severed connection echoed back through the barred channels; _It’s not fair, it’s just not fair. Why can’t I just lose!_ “All you’ve done is convince me that I’m dangerous and best left alone,” the Doctor concluded, pulling her gaze from Yaz as she pulled her thoughts from dwelling on the time they could have spent together; team TARDIS. The ship vibrated around them, a quiet thrumming that rose and fell in sweet cadences. Even now, as the connection faded, Yaz could recognise an apology. 

The room remained silent for some time. It felt wrong, silence in a place like this, one that was always moving and breathing and humming an unintelligible tune. “This was never going to last forever, you know.” The Doctor, once again, spoke in that unfamiliar tone of utter hopelessness. It sounded so deeply wrong coming from her, so deeply sad. "I’m not some cosmic entity that exists outside the confines of time and space, I have to live through it all and sooner of later I was going to reach my limit, and now I have.”

_No,_ she thought, _don’t say that, you can’t say that – “_ Doctor.” She spoke the word aloud, involuntarily, as if her thoughts had become too intense to stay confined inside her head. 

“Oh, Yaz,” the Doctor yelped. She jumped up from the seat and tried to instil her usual air of contagious vigour, pasting on a smile. “How are you feeling?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but, found that she’s wasn’t sure how she felt at all. She could feel an absence in her head, something that was pulled away, glinting temptingly just out of reach, moving ever farther. Her eyes felt raw and watery, it seemed to be the only thing she could focus on. “Err, my eyes hurt,” she said, instantly feeling stupid. 

“Aww Yaz, you’ll be alright, I should have made sure the shielding was stronger around that nebula – those things can be pretty bright,” she smiled, chuckling nervously.

“What happened?” She asked, well aware of the strange echoes of unfamiliar memories fading inside her head.

“Well, like I said, the shields weren’t properly engaged so you weren’t getting enough oxygen.” She spoke rapidly, trying to cover her nerves with a story. “You passed out right on top of me, so I brought you in here to recuperate, I’m really sorry ab-“ 

“Stop lying,” Yaz interrupted, a powerful finality in her tone. “My memories may be hazy, but they’re not that hazy. I know that you ran away from me, that I was trying to find you. I know that you-“ she paused, searching the doctor’s face in disbelief - “that you tried to erase my memories.” She discovered this truth for the first time as she spoke it aloud, some trace of the doctor’s thoughts still lingering.

“Yaz, I -“

Yasmin cried out, clutching her head again. The things she had seen; the boy in the field, the war, the lonely traveller - she couldn’t remember them per se - but the indent they had left behind, the feelings stirred up, the shape of the doctor’s path shone through clearer than ever. The doctor lunges for the bed and clasped her gently by the shoulders. Yaz’s eyes were clamped shut as she shook her head, “who are you?” She whispered, wincing.

“Oh Yaz,” she grimaced, placing her hand on the girls head, siphoning off the remaining telepathic energy, “I think you know, and I think that’s the problem.” Yaz shuddered as the final remnants of the energy left her, culminating in a soft yellow glow in the Doctor’s palm, particles swimming in the air around it like fireflies. “I’m so sorry, first you had to watch me on the Sagirian ship, and now this,” she sighed, resting on the edge of the bed, seemingly unable to meet Yaz’s eyes. “I never meant for any of this to happen.” The sat in silence for a moment. Although Yaz could recall what she had seen for the most part, the memories and emotions that were brought forth by the Doctor when witnessing them subsided, and she was left with the view through her eyes alone. It was amazing how different the journey seemed. 

“Well,” the doctor clapped her hands together and got to her feet, “at least this whole ordeal will make what comes next so much easier.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve seen everything for yourself now. I don’t need to stand here and try to convince you that I’m dangerous, that you should go back to earth. You’ve seen it, you’ve lived it, for a moment even if the details are fading now.” She sighed and paced over to the desk, fidgeting with an old photo frame of a young woman pictured in black and white, keeping her hands busy as her mind raced. “I’ll drop you back on earth, okay? It’ll all be alright, you don’t need to apologise. I know you want to leave.” 

“What?” Yaz gasped. She attempted to sit fully upright but was met with painful, groaning protest by every fibre of her body. “Doctor, what are you talking about?”

“You know who I am, Yaz. I was inside you’re head, I know how scared you are, and –“ she trailed off for a moment, still not meeting Yaz’s eyes – “I’m so sorry I put you through all this.

It took a moment for Yaz to find the right words to say. After everything, it didn’t seem as impossible as it had when she’d sat beside the Doctor while lagoon nebula carried through the cycles of existence. “You know what,” she said, quietly, “you’re right. I am scared, but whoever said fear was a bad thing?” She borrowed the words she’d heard spoken in her travels, echoes of the woman who stood before her now. "How can you assume that someone would look upon the lives you’ve lived and come away disgusted when it’s so, so beautiful.” The Doctor turned, her expression surprised, in awe, but still so very sad. Yaz grinned at her, “you don’t see it, do you? You really can’t see. All those corpses, but what about all the people, all the worlds, you’ve saved? 

“I-“ She stammers, looking away.

“You don’t even think about them, do you?That’s what you needed, someone who could see your world without that cloud of your own self-loathing snuffing out everything good. It’s the same with everyone, Doctor, sometimes we need others to remind us of the good in ourselves.” The Doctor’s eyes sparkled, a faint glimmer of hope that had been absent for so long that Yaz was surprised to find it there. She sat down on the bed again, taking Yaz’s hands in her own.

“Thank you, Yaz, really. You’re brilliant," she beamed. A moment later, her smile faltered, and Yaz's heart did the same. "But it doesn’t change anything. What I did on that ship, it was nothing compared to what I’m really capable of, you, and Graham, and Ryan… you know that now.”

“When we’re with you, we can help people, we can do so much good.” The Doctor shook her head as if to dismiss her words. “No, listen to me,” she clasped the woman’s arm with urgency, “all those people you’ve lost, you made them better, their lives are so beautiful because of you.”

“They’re lives were sad. They were short and sad,” she grimaced. 

“They were both.” The Doctor stared at her, something between affection and terror – an uncanny twist of her own words relayed back to her, old lessons relearned. 

“Yaz,” she muttered, breathless, “how can I possibly convince them to stay?”

“You can’t,” she replied, remembering Graham’s talk of grief fuelling adventure, of that undeniable pull towards danger, and Ryan’s lament of betrayal and hypocrisy, a boy who liked to pretend he was tough ruined at the site of the Doctor’s power. “But they’re looking for a reason to trust you. All you can do, is be honest, and let them make their own decision, just as I’ve made mine.” 

The Doctor sniffed, a half-hearted chuckle. “Guess I really can’t shake you then, can I?” She smiled.

“Never.”

“Do me a favour then, Yasmin Khan,” she said, once again meeting Yaz’s eyes with a fierce, burning intensity, “don’t die, okay?”

Yasmin beamed. “I’ll try.” 


	13. Chapter 13

It was seven in the morning when Graham O’Brien heard the familiar otherworldly wheeze of the TARDIS materialising outside the house. He hadn’t slept, partly due to the visions of alien gore that plagued him whenever he closed his eyes, as well as the smell and sense of Grace that hung over the entire house. The sound of the Doctor’s ship brought dread instead of excitement, he realised, and he wondered whether he’d ever feel the same way about that noise again. 

He heard footsteps approaching, and sure enough, a hesitant knock at the door. He was in the kitchen with a lukewarm cup of tea and one of Graces scarves draped over his shoulders. He left his spot at the table reluctantly, throwing the scarf over the back of the dining chair as he went to answer the door.

The Doctor stood there, shuffling her feet and wringing her hands, always moving. At the sight of him, she flashed him a nervous grin so wise it almost seemed manic. He smiled back out of polite habit. 

“Hello Graham,” She stammered, glancing over her shoulder fervently, as if she was waiting for something. “Err, how’re things?” she stalled.

“Yeah, good, good,” he replied, a little impatiently, “it’s nice to spend some down time back home.” 

She craved her neck to peer into the entrance hall. “Is Ryan in?” She asked.

“Yeah, he’s upstairs, pretty sure he stayed ya up all night playing those video games of his, takes his mind off things I’d wager,” she nodded. She looked so uncomfortable standing there, clearly eager to say something that she hadn’t the faintest idea how to articulate. He almost felt sorry for her. “Would you like to come in?” He offered.

“If you’ll have me.” She looked at Graham with a certain earnest vulnerability that clashed completely with the cold rage she’d shown the day before. “And-“ she sighed -“I’d ask the same to you.” 

“If we’d join you in the Tardis again?” He considered. The doctor looked down at her feet, waiting for a response. “Look Doc, I know I said I needed time, but I think I might need more than just that, you know?”

“Yeah, I understand.” She did, completely, that much was evident from how utterly heartbroken she sounded. “But, for what it’s worth, I wanted to apologise - properly this time. I betrayed you by hiding a, regrettably, large part of who I am, and I think you deserve to know that. So,” Graham hadn’t realised she’d been tensing her shoulders, but now he watches her relax, physically letting something tightly bound to her go, “no more secrets. No more pretending to be some infallible hero, because nobody is, and certainly not me.” 

There was a rustling noise from upstairs. “Doctor?” Ryan emerged from the upstairs landing. He was wearing a dark tracksuit and hoodie, and he was brushing off the orange dust that was clinging to the dark fabric down onto the carpet. 

“Oi Ryan, you do realise you’ll be vacuuming up that Cheeto dust right?” Graham cried. 

“What’s up,” Ryan continued, ignoring his grandad to his exasperated disbelief, “how’ve you been?” 

“Good,” she beamed, “thanks, Ryan.” 

“The Doctor was just about to come in, weren’t you Doc?” Graham looked at her, indicating for her to agree.

“Yeah, yeah I was. Thanks,” she smiled gratefully and walked over the threshold as Graham stood aside and gestures for her to enter. “I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?” She piped up, her usual rambling enthusiasm reinstated. “Ooh, tea at Graham’s, can’t wait!” Ryan and Graham exchanged an amused glance. 

“How’d she do?” Yaz emerged from around the hedge at the front of the property. She looked tired, there were dark rings around her eyes and her hair was dishevelled. 

“Yaz,” Ryan exclaimed, “are you okay?” she dodged the question. 

“Were you just peeking out behind the bushes the whole time?” Graham asked, both annoyed and impressed.

“I just wanted to make sure she was alright.”

“And is she?” Ryan ventured, “alright, I mean.”

“I think she’s a whole lot less alright than she seems, so thank you for letting her in.” She smiled at them both gratefully.

“I won’t make any promises Yaz,” Graham reminded her.

“I know,” she nodded solemnly, “but you’ll hear her out, that’s all I’m asking. 

Graham shook his head. “Yaz, what could she possibly say?”

“I don’t know, maybe there’s nothing she can say, but she wants to fix this, or at least make things a little better. I think it’s time we all faced up to who she really is, who we’ve really been following.”

Ryan nodded, “It’s just that, all this time I didn’t even think to question her, always just figured she would always do the right thing.”

“Yeah,” Yaz agreed, “we all did.” A deafening crash from inside the house made the three of them jump. 

“Arrgh, Dalek balls!” The Doctor yelled, her voiced muffled through the walls. The cry was followed by yet another clatter that sounded like an array of metal clanging to the floor of the kitchen. 

Graham winced, bracing himself for any further damage. “I’d better make sure she hasn’t set anything on fire,” he sighed, making his way towards the kitchen and leaving the other two alone. 

“Are you okay, Yaz?” Ryan asked, reiterating the question, now that she couldn’t escape it. 

“I don’t know, the things she told me…” she trailed off, thinking about everything she’d seen in that strange fever dream, the way that the title of this entity was written all over the timelines of the universe. “I think we’ve all got a big decision to make.”

“But you’ll stay with her, won’t you.” He sounded a little defeated. “I know you, Yaz. You’d never shy away from an adventure, and definitely not from the Doctor.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right hey?” She grinned. “One thing I did learn though, everything terrible about the Doctor, everything that’s scaring you, scaring all of us, every possibility about her past that your mind’s probably running over right now – it is nothing compared to the good she’s done. She cares about us, Ryan, she really does.”

“I know I,” he hesitated, “I just can’t shake the idea that it’s all a game to her, that it’s all just pretend.”

“The Doctor we know isn’t a lie, she’s just tried to hide the full truth, she’s still the same person,” she assured him. Ryan opened his mouth to answer but was cut off by a voice emanating from the kitchen.

“Why were there so many Jammy-dodgers in your pockets?” Graham cried from the kitchen. 

“I wanted to bring snacks!” the Doctor defended herself. She popped her head around the corner of the entrance way. “Come on in you two,” she stepped into view and straightened up, “no more secrets, Yaz,” she nodded to her gratefully, “like I said. Let’s get started. Yaz glanced up at Ryan, he still seemed reluctant to follow the woman who’s persona he still couldn’t detach from that cold, vengeful being he’d watched the day before. Yaz nodded to him and walked after the Doctor into the house. Closing the door, he did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I'm really not sure about this ending, it was really difficult to write a believable resolution so I've left it more open. These three still have a lot to talk about but I think they'll get there in the end, there are things that the Doctor can't hide forever, no matter how much they want to present the best version of themselves. Hope you've enjoyed this fic, and if you have any ideas for a better ending/continuation or something like that I'd love to hear it :) thank you all for reading


End file.
